Checkmate. Doyle stared at the board for what seemed like hours, but was probably only a minute or two. Time had lost it's meaning, as had just about everything else. He laughed, as he laid his King on its side in resignation, picked up his phone and dialed Dimitri's number as Gilmour's haunting voice and axe wafted around the room from his stereo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxbpYSRYG_w&feature=related

"Da?" came the low baritone from the other end, it's Russian accent dripping with vodka.

"Checkmate, my friend." Doyle replied, weariness and defeat making their way across the vast distance.

Silence met that declaration, and for a moment Doyle thought perhaps their connection had been dropped.

"In all the years we have played, my friend, I have never beaten you."

It was Doyle's turn to be quiet. What was there to say.

"There's a first time for everything." was about all he could get out. "Guess I was just lucky."

"I've known you for twenty years, Quinn" Dimitri answered. "You have never been....lucky. You were always better."

Doyle shook his head. "Not anymore old man....not anymore. Did you get the calculations I sent you?"

Again there was that erie silence on the other end, but Doyle waited it out.

"Da" Dimitri replied quietly. "You are certain of this? Our astonomers are not so sure."

"You don't have access to the G five solar array that we put on the Hubble during a routine mission to realign the primary." Doyle said, knowing full well that his Russian counterpart understood the ramifications.

"No, we do NOT!" Dimitri snapped back, clearly aggrivated. "You Americans are so smug in your belief that yours is the only way. Tell me, Quinn....when was your Government going to tell the rest of the world about this?"

Doyle figured the big Russian was correct in his indignation, but that didn't change things.

"They were'nt" he replied. "Not unless I found a way to stop it. That's why I broke protocol and security to send you my notes."

The Russians voice returned to it's normal state. He understood. He would have done the same.

"I am sorry, my friend." Dimitri said. "It is not your fault that you were born in the second greatest country in the world." The Russian loved to rib Doyle about that fact, and had ever since he saw the American's face when he first proclaimed it so long ago.

This time, Doyle chose to ignore the mans dig. Truth was, it didn't much matter who was better, who had more toys, whose God was right. In the end, it's all just stuff.

"You are certain of your calculations?" Dimitri asked, realizing what Doyle's silence meant.

"I was hoping you would find something I missed, my friend. Some small error in my math. a misplaced decimal point...anything." Doyle replied, a small glimmer of hope in his voice.

The big man sighed and shook his head. "Nyet." he responded quietly. "It is as you fear."

Doyle's stomach knotted, his eyes closed and a hollow quiet filled the void of his room.

"I understand." he said at last. "I wish I had fucked up.....something."

"It is bitch being so smart, is it not?" asked Dimitri, trying in vain to bring his freinds spirits up, even as his own were sinking. "Will you tell her?" he said, remembering the woman Doyle had told him about a few weeks ago.

"No" Doyle answered, ignoring the mans attempt at levity. "I think not. She has a young son and a possible shot at happiness. Let her have that. Ignorance indeed can be bliss."

He was right, of course. Dimitri found himself wishing for that same blissful ignorance as he looked upon the picture of his wife and daughter, and a sad smile crossed his face. "Are you sure that Garrison is incorrect about the timing?" he asked, although he knew Doyle would have poured over those particular figures above all others.

"Right now" Doyle said, glancing over at the simulation running on his laptop. His eyes closed tight, trying to shut out the animation he saw there, but it was burned into his mind. He saw it in his sleep, what little of that he got lately. "It's the only thing I AM certain of."

"I had to ask" replied Dimitri. "Three years is...." the large man could not finish his sentence, the words choking in his throat.

"I know" Doyle replied, resigned to the horror show replaying again on the small screen. "For whatever reason it has defied our known laws of Physics. It resisted the gravity of a singularity's event horizon and somehow used it as a slingshot. It's speed is increasing with each star it passes. Instead of slowing down, as it should,..." Doyle stopped there, knowing the Russian astrophysicist knew what he was talking about.

There was a deep breath from Dimitri's end, followed by a final, heartfelt 'thank you. I'm going to go hom, make love to my wife and let my daughter eat a bag of potato chips' before the line went dead.

Doyle smiled. "Goodbye, old friend." he said into the reciever, before folding the phone and tossing it onto the coffee table. Drinking the last of his now warm beer, he set it on the table, got up and walked outside into the glow of a full moon.

A smirk crossed his face as it hung defiantly in the night sky. "Welcome home." he said with a chuckle. It was then that exhaustion set in and he walked back into his place, leaving the door wide open, his laptop running and his stereo on. He barely hit the pillows, as the sandman claimed his prize. The last thing his ears took in was, somehow in his mind, apropos to the whole situation.

-- Edited by DOYLE on Monday 18th of July 2011 09:41:23 PM